The Swingers Club

Normally when I post here to point you to a new article of mine, I like to say a few things about the subject matter of the piece, or a little back story about how I came to write it. But for once, I'd like to concentrate on the art direction of an essay, not the actual words themselves. If you happen to have a copy of the latest Wired (the one with Peter Jackson on the cover) turn to page 118 and prepare to have a good laugh at my expense. I'd written a fun piece for them about how accurate golf simulations have become -- basically you can improve your real-world golf game by playing virtual golf on your Xbox. As the piece was working its way through copy-edit, I got a call from their art department saying that they wanted to do a photo shoot for the piece with me as the lead subject. My brain was immediately filled with glamour shots of me wearing my best noted-cultural-critic look of intense rumination, glamour shots of me mulling the blurred line between the real and the virtual. All of my essays should have photos of me accompanying them, I thought. How appropriate that Wired -- with its legendary ahead-of-the-curve design sensibility -- should be the first to realize this.

And then I showed up for the photo shoot, and was greeted by a pair of yellow pants, a green jacket, an argyle sweater, and a hat that hasn't been worn without irony anywhere in the civilized world for nearly thirty years. You can get a sense of the picture from this smaller image here, but I assure you the full-size version alone is worth the cover price of Wired. My friend Rael described it best: I look like a demented leprechaun.

I'm a father of three boys, husband of one wife, and author of nine books, host of one television series, and co-founder of three web sites. We split our time between Brooklyn, NY and Marin County, CA. Personal correspondence should go to sbeej68 at gmail dot com. If you're interested in having me speak at an event, drop a line to Wesley Neff at the Leigh Bureau (WesN at Leighbureau dot com.)

Where Good Ideas Come From: The Natural History of InnovationAn exploration of environments that lead to breakthrough innovation, in science, technology, business, and the arts. I conceived it as the closing book in a trilogy on innovative thinking, after Ghost Map and Invention. But in a way, it completes an investigation that runs through all the books, and laid the groundwork for How We Got To Now. (Available from IndieBound here.)

The Invention of AirThe story of the British radical chemist Joseph Priestley, who ended up having a Zelig-like role in the American Revolution. My version of a founding fathers book, and a reminder that most of the Enlightenment was driven by open source ideals. (Available from IndieBound here.)

The Ghost MapThe story of a terrifying outbreak of cholera in 1854 London 1854 that ended up changing the world. An idea book wrapped around a page-turner. I like to think of it as a sequel to Emergence if Emergence had been a disease thriller. You can see a trailer for the book here. (Available from IndieBound here.)

Mind Wide Open : Your Brain and the Neuroscience of Everyday LifeMy first best-seller, and the only book I've written in which I appear as a recurring character, subjecting myself to a battery of humiliating brain scans. The last chapter on Freud and the neuroscientific model of the mind is one of my personal favorites. (Available from IndieBound here.)